Join AIYA QLD! The Australia-Indonesia Youth Association (AIYA) - Queensland... Chapter is looking for new team members to join the committee. Check out the open job descriptions and find out how you can apply here. Yuk! buff.ly/2v78MVXpic.twitter.com/LQOaTRfYLa

Canberra, 23 May – Come to AIYA ACT’s annual Networking Night! Held in the Indonesian Embassy, mingle between students and professionals, create networks, and be inspired by the benefits of studying Indonesian! buff.ly/2IEYXnIpic.twitter.com/eyPCbKTyv8

Advisory Board

The AIYA Executive Committee is proud to be mentored by an Advisory Board of key figures in the Australia-Indonesia relationship. The role of the AIYA Advisory Board is to provide non-binding but informed advice to the Executive in how to engage with Australian and Indonesian youth alike. The Advisory Board members hold a long history of engagement with Indonesia, providing valuable insight into the region.

Advisory Board

Professor David Hill AM

Professor David T Hill AM is the Consortium Director and Founder of ACICIS (Australian Consortium of ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies). The Consortium Director is responsible for the overall management of ACICIS, chairing the National Reference Group which determines ACICIS policy.

Professor Hill is an Emeritus Professor at Murdoch University in Perth, having recently retired from his position in the Asian Studies Program at Murdoch University where he was a Fellow of the Asia Research Centre for Social, Political and Economic Change. His research interests are in Indonesian media, literature, biography, and cultural politics, and he is a NAATI-accredited professional English-Indonesian interpreter and translator. In 2009 Professor Hill was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council to develop a national strategic plan for the advancement of Indonesian language in Australian universities. Professor Hill has been a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (2006), an invited participant in the Government’s “Australia 2020 Summit” (April 2008), was a Board Member of the DFAT Australia-Indonesia Institute (2011-14) and has previously chaired the Board of Management of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University.

Professor Michele Ford

Professor Michele Ford is Director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre and an ARC Future Fellow at the University of Sydney. Michele has a long history of engagement with Indonesia, having majored in Indonesian studies at UNSW, before studying politics and sociology at Universitas Gadjah Mada in 1993-94 on an Australian Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship. Upon her return to Australia, Michele completed her Honours year at the ANU, where she received a first-class degree for her thesis on the Indonesian industrial relations system. She later undertook a PhD on the role of NGOs in the reconstruction of the Indonesian labour movement in the Centre for Asia-Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS) at the University of Wollongong.

Michele began her academic career at Flinders, where she taught Asian Studies and Indonesian language in 2004-05, before moving to the University of Sydney, where she rebuilt the Indonesian Studies program before taking up the position of inaugural Director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre.

Michele has been the recipient of several Australian Research Council grants on topics related to Indonesia, including identity construction in the Indonesia-Singapore borderlands, NGO and trade union responses to labour migration in East and Southeast Asia, the re-emergence of political labour in Indonesia, and role of the Global Union Federations in Indonesia and India, and the impact of trade union aid in Southeast Asia. In addition, she has a strong record of service to the discipline of Indonesian Studies, having been Secretary of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (2006-11), President of the Indonesia Council (2005-10), NSW representative on the ACICIS Reference Group (2006-2011), and the University of Sydney representative on the Australian Universities Governing Committee of the Aceh Research Training Institute (2006-2008).

Michele was also first Secretary and then Chair of the Board of IRIP, the organisation that publishes Inside Indonesia, where she also served many years as Coordinating Editor, a position she shared with Professor Edward Aspinall, and continues to sit on the Advisory Board of the ANU’s Indonesia Project.

Ms Jenny McGregor

Ms Jenny McGregor is the founding CEO of Asialink at The University of Melbourne and founding Executive Director of the Asia Education Foundation. Under her leadership Asialink has become Australia’s largest non-government centre for the promotion of Australia-Asia relations, with programs spanning education, the arts, business, health and diplomacy.

Ms McGregor is also a member of the Asialink Taskforce for an Asia Capable Workforce in 2012, a 2014 Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and makes regular media appearances on issues relating to Australia’s engagement with the Asian region. Ms McGregor was awarded a Universitas 21 (U21) Award for Internationalisation in 2013 in recognition of her contribution to the development of Asialink and its role as a national leader on issues of Asian engagement in Australia.

She holds the Peter Brice award for outstanding contribution to teaching and learning about the Asia-Pacific region and is a recipient of the World Chinese Economic Forum Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership in Asian Studies in Australia.

John W.H. Denton

John W.H. Denton is a Partner and the Chief Executive Officer of Corrs Chambers Westgarth, the leading Australian independent law firm.

A global leader in three arenas; a legal expert in the areas of government, workplace relations, and international trade and investment; a national business leader and an international adviser on global policy. His advice is sought by the nation’s most prominent corporations and by governments and international bodies alike.

Appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2015, being recognised “for his distinguished service to business and commerce, particularly in the legal profession, to the visual and performing arts sectors, to social welfare and the rights of refugees”. This award represents the highest recognition for outstanding achievement and service in Australia.

John is Chair of the Business Council of Australia’s (BCA) Global Engagement Taskforce; board member of Asialink and Teach for Australia; Chairman (emeritus) of the Experts Group on Trade and Investment in Indonesia and a founding member of the Australia China CEO Roundtable meetings.

He is one of the two originating members of the B20 – the business reference group of the G20, and is a member of the Australian B20 Leadership Group.

John was recently elected to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Executive Board in Paris and is a member of the ICC G20 CEO Advisory Group, the primary body for establishing the direction of business input within the G20 process.

A key member of the Australian Government advisory panel overseeing the development of the ‘Australia in the Asian Century’ White Paper, John was also on the Government’s Cabinet sub-committee for the White Paper review process published in October 2012. He later became a member of the Strategic Advisory Board advising the Government on implementation and emerging policy issues.

John was a government appointed panel member of the Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness and has been Chairman of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees Australia for more than a decade. He is a former diplomat, has a double degree in Arts and Law, and is a Harvard Business School alumnus.

He is recognised as one of the best labour law practitioners in the Asia Pacific by Asialaw Leading Lawyers Survey and one of Australia’s best government and trade lawyers in the Best Lawyers peer survey.

Mr Arjuna Dibley

Arjuna Dibley is a lawyer with a specialism in Indonesian law and international climate change law. He is currently an Associate in the Global Climate Change Practice of Baker & McKenzie, where his practice focuses on providing advice to governments, multilateral organisations, development banks, global and domestic not-for-profits and Global Fortune 500 companies related to projects and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He has worked on projects in Australia, Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, and particularly in Indonesia.

Arjuna is also a regular contributor to academic and public discussions on Indonesian law and policy, climate change law and policy and Australia’s relationships with Asia. His writing on these topics have been published in, among others, the Carbon and Climate Law Review, The Age, The Guardian, The Jakarta Post, Inside Indonesia and several leading policy blogs. He is also an Associate at the University of Melbourne’s Centre of Indonesian Law, Islam and Society and has guest lectured on these topics at leading Australian universities.

Arjuna is a co-founder of AIYA and its inaugural President until July 2015. He has been widely recognised for his work on climate change and Indonesian law and on AIYA, including being awarded an Australian Law Award for best lawyer under 30 years old, an Australian Leadership Award by the Australian Davos Connection and a Prime Minister’s Australia Asia Endeavour Award.

Further information on our other Advisory Board members will be released in due course.